After posting for the first time in ages, I felt awesome. Energised! I went to bed later that night and my mind was whirling with ideas, which was annoying because I was tired but it was still better than having no ideas. Three years ago, when I first started this blog, I struggled so much with what to write about. I would trawl through the Daily Prompt desperate for ideas. I kept a list of links to appealing prompts saved in my phone to bust out when inspiration failed to strike me. And, back then, it failed to strike me often.

It took awhile but one day I noticed I hadn’t used those prompts in ages. In fact, nothing grabbed me when I looked through them. I had heaps of drafts lined up in WordPress and ideas would pop into my head on the bus, in the shower, before I went to sleep (which is where I got the idea for this post along with two others). It’s like your brain builds a natural curiosity about things or starts using writing as a way of thinking complicated (or sometimes very mundane) things through.

Not to say that I think it’s going to be easy from here on out but I definitely want to try and commit myself to writing more frequently. I might be busy but I’m not that busy that I can’t spare 30mins or an hour to do something I love. I can’t work all the time and do not much else. I tried that for six months and it fucking sucks. Take it from me, guys. Make the time, you’re never that fucking busy. You think you are but you’re not. And fuck, maybe you are but still, you can’t spare even 10 – 20 mins to do whatever it is you really enjoy? Go for a walk, watch your favourite program, play with your dog, whatever. You’ve got to have some ‘you’ in all that ‘them’.

So I have two more ideas for posts and we’ll see what else comes to me. There are other things I want to do besides write, like, I don’t know, maybe exercise. That’s fallen by the wayside as well. But let’s just start small. Baby steps. One day at a time. Plus I’m not super keen on getting back to exercise (to be honest, I’m that unfit I’m a bit worried) so we’ll just focus on the writing for now. It’s much less taxing. 😉

I had a super-productive Friday. I spent about an hour walking to/from my jeweller’s (mission: engagement ring) and, on the way, my mind filled with ideas for my assignments. After a week of not being very inspired, things were looking up. You know that feeling you get when you’re writing about something that really excites you? When you’re finally in the zone and ideas are coming at you like a fucking word blizzard? Well, that was me on Friday.

I reworked a draft of one assignment on describing a place/setting and blitzed through some basic research and a pretty rough draft on another assignment on nudity/women’s sexuality. Of course, you let it stew for a few days and you come back find to a whole heap of ways to improve what you had originally thought was straight fire. *sigh* But, regardless, it’s all about those moments when your writing feels almost feverish. When your fingers have a mind of their own and you don’t even feel like you’re thinking because words are just shooting out of your fingertips like you’re some kind of wizard.

I knew what I was writing wasn’t perfect. Hell, I chopped and changed shit all over the place today when I revisited it. But the point is that I got started because that’s always and forever, without fail the hardest part of writing anything. But that awesome feeling of being possessed by whatever your writing doesn’t hurt. And surely everyone could stand to feel like a word wizard in a word blizzard from time to time? Too much? Too bad, I stand by my phrase.

When does your inspiration come to you? While driving? When in the shower? While running or going for a walk? These all sound very nice. Maybe not super convenient if you quickly want to write something down but, all in all, not too terrible. My brain is an asshole. It gives me my “best” ideas right before I go to bed.

Take last night for example. I’d wanted to start on my personal essay assignment for uni but wasn’t feeling inspired about my topic. So instead, I wrote a few posts and, still not feeling inspired, decided to watch some teevee and catch up on my blog reading while eating Nutella straight from the jar (as you can see, I can multi-task like a motherfucker). Midnight rolls around so I take myself off to bed.

Lo and behold, my brain starts spitting out golden wordage for my uni assignment. At midnight. When I need to go to sleep. And it doesn’t stop. It has plenty of ideas that it wants to share with me and, of course, I don’t want to lose them so I quickly type them up in my phone’s notes. But seriously though, it had hours and hours after I got home to come up with this shit but it decides no no no beddy byes time is the right time. I was worried the light from my phone screen would bother Jared so I actually contemplated getting out of bed and writing but thought, ‘no, fuck you, brain. That’ll just encourage you.’

So tonight, I start my assignment based on my previous scribbles and the new stuff my brain cooked up last night. I really want to get a first draft done this week while we’re on study break and I have heaps of time. Once again, I’m not feeling particularly inspired but I’m going to force myself because I’m not having a repeat of last night. Do you hear me brain?!? This shit is not going to fly.

I found the above text on the side of a fridge in a chemist. It made me think that ‘they’ say, if you want to be a writer, you need to pay attention to your surroundings so you can be inspired. But how does that play with someone like me who spends all day with her head in the clouds?

I’d describe myself as ‘generally not very observant’. I’ll go weeks without noticing a local business has changed or an awning has broken off downstairs. Yet other things interest me very much; strange things like the back of a stranger’s head or what they’re reading (especially if it’s not the type of thing you’d expect – yes, I love to make snap judgements). I’m fascinated by things like the postal system or the life of prawns or the way the jacaranda flowers blanket the streets and turn into a magnificent purple sludge.

Yet, I often find myself pondering more… I hesitate to say intellectual things because really it’s just more thought-based stuff. I write about what I feel, rather than what I see. Which is weird because, in real life, I don’t tend to voice this stuff too much (unless there’s alcohol and/or drugs and/or D&Ms involved). I’m more about discussing happenings and social issues and oh my god how hot is that chick?

It’s like my writing allows me to express all the things floating around in my head that I might not usually be comfortable saying (until I’ve written it and then it’s OK). So while I might not be the typical ‘oh look at the sunset! I must write about the colours immediately’ kind of writer, I do ponder and observe things in my own way.

Don’t get me wrong, I still get inspired by the the occasional red wine glass in a window or lone egg yolk in a bowl (in draft mode) but the vast majority of the time it’s brain stuff for me. I’m observant… just in a different way. In a living in a bubble kind of way.